


i want your midnights

by floralathena



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, New Year's Eve, Platonic Relationships, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 02:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19820638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralathena/pseuds/floralathena
Summary: Steve doesn’t really worry about saying the wrong thing to Robin. He still thinks about what he’s gonna say if they’re having a serious conversation, because he’s not as dumb as he looks, but he doesn’t obsess over it or anything. He doesn’t have to.“We should kiss,” he says. The ceiling isn’t spinning, but it definitely looks a little weird. Like, he’s 82% sure that it can’t be the exact same ceiling that’s been in his room his whole life. It’s just kinda... off.“I’m high, not drunk,” Robin responds.“How’s the ceiling right now?”“Stationary.”“Me too, I think. Anyway, that’s not what I meant. Gross.”





	i want your midnights

Steve thinks that he might love Robin more than anyone else he’s ever known.

Obviously, Dustin is up there too, but loving Dustin is kind of like loving his mom. He didn’t really have a choice in the matter. His mom gave birth to him and made his PB&Js back when he was too short to reach the counter, Dustin recruited him to catch a monster and put a rainbow band-aid on his face after he got his ass severely beaten, and Steve’s choice was made for him. Technically he didn’t really have much of a choice with Robin either- they worked together and then they were trapped together and then they were hitting Billy in the Toddfather together, and it’s not like he could do that with someone and then just never think about them again. All of the stuff in-between and after was voluntary, though. Well, maybe it wasn’t. Steve doesn’t know. All he knows is that the way he loves his mom and the way he loves Dustin is kind of like the way he feels when the radio plays old songs he hasn’t heard in a while. Like, he knew he’d hear them again, and sometimes they get stuck in his head randomly and won’t leave until he hears them again, and he’s always gonna sing along and smile. Loving Robin isn’t really like that. 

Loving Robin isn’t really anything like loving Nancy, either. His love for Nancy had always been tinged with something that he’d only recently identified as desperation, a fear that one day she’d wise up and dump his ass for someone that actually deserved her. He’d never actually thought about it like that when they were together. Why would he? She loved him. Even when he believed that, though, there was still anxiety thrumming underneath. He was always worried that he’d say something stupid or mean without realizing, and she’d figure out that he was a faker, that he was still the same asshole who vandalized the marquee and taunted Jonathan Byers until it came to blows. 

Steve doesn’t really worry about saying the wrong thing to Robin. He still thinks about what he’s gonna say if they’re having a serious conversation, because he’s not as dumb as he looks, but he doesn’t obsess over it or anything. He doesn’t have to.

“We should kiss,” he says. The ceiling isn’t spinning, but it definitely looks a little weird. Like, he’s 82% sure that it can’t be the exact same ceiling that’s been in his room his whole life. It’s just kinda... off.

“I’m high, not drunk,” Robin responds.

“How’s the ceiling right now?”

“Stationary.”

“Me too, I think. Anyway, that’s not what I meant. Gross.”

Robin flicks his foot. It’s very rude of her, because she already took his good pillow and moved it down to the foot of the bed so that she could lie down the wrong way, and she knows that he hates it when things touch his feet. He pinches her pinky toe in retaliation and she pinches his ankle back.

“You’re gross. What did you meant? Mean.” Steve hears something rustling and knows that Robin just shook her head at herself. “What did you mean?”

Steve checks his watch. When he lifts his wrist up and focuses on it, the ceiling starts looking normal again. “It’s almost midnight.” He holds his wrist out for Robin to see.

“Ohh,” Robin says, “Right.”

He had ignored a couple of party invitations for this. His parents had urged him to come into the city with them, but that party required a tie and dodging questions about his nonexistent life plan all night. Dustin had told him he was welcome to come over and watch the Dick Clark special with him and his mom, but Steve had already made plans by then. 

Making brownies with Robin and lying in bed together while they kick in is just… better. 

“You’d be my first.”

“Kiss?”

“Duh.”

“Damn,” Steve reflects. “That’s kind of cool.” He thinks there might be a water stain in the corner of the ceiling. Hopefully he’ll remember to tell mom to tell dad about it later.

“No, it’s not. It’s sad.”

“I mean, I guess. But it’s cool, too.”

“How is it cool? I’m seventeen.”

“Oh, ew. Don’t say that. I forgot you’re a baby.”

Robin flicks his foot again, so he sticks it in her face for a second before pulling it back because he doesn’t really feel like getting into a full-blown wrestling match right now. She thumps it solidly this time, and his leg jerks. 

“Shut up.”

“No, it’s totally cool. Like, I don’t even know who my first kiss was, it’s lame.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I mean, I know who I, like, properly made out with for the first time, but kissed? Beats me.”

“Okay, but are you counting, like, playground pecks? Because it doesn’t count as a kiss if you’re six.”

“No, like, real kissed. I think it was in sixth grade. I’m pretty sure what happened is we played spin the bottle and I kissed, like, four girls in one night, but I don’t even remember who was there.”

“Four girls?”

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe three. Maybe five.”

Robin whistles. 

Steve stops looking at the ceiling, turning his head to the right to look at Robin instead. She’s looking back at him.

He checks his watch again, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s eleven fifty-two.”

She’s smiling. “I’m not kissing you, Harrington.”

“I’ve had a New Year's kiss every year since sixth grade.”

“Yeah? And how did they all work out for you?”

They look at each other for a second. Steve goes first, bursting into loud laughter that nearly drowns out Robin’s hysterical giggles. He likes the sound of them both laughing at the same time. It’s nice, and he thinks that they should, like, record it and put it into a song or something. He imagines going to a music store and seeing a cassette with his and Robin’s ugly laughing faces on it, which is kind of the funniest thing ever, so he laughs harder, which makes Robin laugh harder, and now she doesn’t even know what she’s laughing at which is also really funny.

Eventually, he catches his breath. 

“Good point. It’s eleven fifty-six.”

Robin laughs again. 

“I just always liked it,” he says as she tries to calm down, “The idea of a New Year's kiss. Promising someone that you’re gonna be there for the next twelve months and fifty-whatever weeks and three hundred whatever days, and then it’s New Year's again and you kiss again and you do the whole promise all over again. It’s romantic.”

“Any of them ever keep their promise?”

Steve fully nestles his head against Robin’s feet, closing his eyes. She’s wearing really soft socks.

“Nah. But I didn’t, either.” 

“I want to kiss someone,” Robin says.

“Limited-time offer over here.”

“A girl.”

“I’ll just never be good enough for you, huh?”

“Nope. I have high standards.”

Steve sighs. “You think it’s too late to run over to Dustin’s?”

“Wow, you really are desperate.”

“No, you perv, it’s just that Dustin is nice to me.”

“No, he’s not.”

“No, he’s not,” Steve agrees. “Not always, anyway.”

“You’d just end up listening to him and his girlfriend be gross over their little radios.”

“Yeah. I take it back. This is better.”

This is better. His room is comfortably warm despite the frosty landscape outside. Robin is warm and funny and Robin and her socks are, like, really soft against his face, and he rubs his cheek against them before he realizes that that’s kind of weird, and then he does it again when Robin doesn’t call him out on it.

He peeks at his watch. 

“Eleven fifty-seven.”

“Sometimes I think I’m just gonna, like, grow old and die and never get my first kiss.”

“No way.”

“You don’t know that.”

Steve scoffs, and Robin continues.

“You don’t know what it’s like, man. Like, you’ve got a shot with every girl in the world, and I- I don’t even know anyone. You’re supposed to be able to tell, you know, if someone else is gay too, but I can’t. I can’t tell. Or maybe I’ve just never met any other gay girls in the wild. I don’t know, but it’s- it’s fucked up. I don’t even know.”

“That is fucked up.”

It is fucked up. Steve just throws whatever he’s got at every girl he meets and hopes something will stick. He’s got a shot with every girl in Hawkins, and he routinely ruins all of those chances right in front of Robin. She probably kind of hates him for it.

“Still,” he says, “When you find one, she’s gonna, like, fall in love with you, probably.”

Robin snorts.

“No, Rob, I’m serious! Okay, not- you shouldn’t just settle for the first girl you meet.”

“Like Bethany and Rita,” she says grimly.

“Yeah,” he says. “Wait, they’re dating?”

“If you can call it that. They just kind of yell at each other a lot and then do gross stuff in the instrument room when nobody else is around.”

“Weird,” Steve comments. “Anyway, don’t- don’t do that. Bethany’s a freak and Rita had to take her driver’s test five times.”

“She got a ticket last week.”

“Exactly. But that’s not- that’s not what I was saying. You’re a catch. Sooner or later, somebody’s gonna see that.”

“Somebody besides you?”

“Somebody besides me.”

Robin grabs his right arm and pulls it out away from his side so that she can look at his watch.

“Eleven fifty-eight,” she says, dropping his arm and letting it flop down across her thighs and abdomen. Steve pats her hip, eyes still closed as he rests against her comfy socks.

“What about Rachel Smith?”

“You think she’s gay?”

Steve thinks about it. “I don’t know. She’s just kind of cool. She has one of those ear piercings that’s not in the normal ear piercing spot. I don’t think she’s ever had a boyfriend.”

“It’s called the ear lobe.”

“I know what it’s called.”

“Sure you do.” Robin wiggles her feet a little. “I don’t know, maybe you’re right.”

“About Rachel Smith? Because I’m kind of just making shit up right now.”

“About me not dying old and alone.”

“Well, duh. Even if you don’t get a kiss you’re not gonna die alone. I’m gonna be there, still just driving you around and shit.”

“What, you’re not gonna have a family?”

“Robin, in what universe do you never even kiss a girl but I find one willing to marry me?”

“This one, Steve. You’re not that bad.”

“Aren’t I?”

“Okay, so you kinda suck at flirting. It’s cute, you know, it’s charming! You just try too hard.”

“Whatever. I’m kind of over it.”

“Flirting?”

“Yeah. I don’t know, it’s just kind of habit now. I don’t really need to date somebody.”

“Well, nobody needs to date anybody.”

“I’m just… I’m cool with it. You know? I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing with my life yet. I’m not gonna make everything more complicated for myself for no reason. I’m happy like this.”

Robin wiggles her toes. “That makes sense.”

“I do that sometimes.”

“Once in a blue moon.”

“Is that a comic book thing?”

Robin bursts into laughter and the sound makes Steve want to laugh too, so he does, turning his face so it’s buried half in Robin’s feet and half in the mattress. She lifts a foot, using it to fuck up his hair and sort of sloppily pat his head.

“Dude, what are you doing?!” he gets out between laughs.

Robin puts her foot back down just so that she can shove it in his face, trying to muffle his laughter. “Shhh, shh, wait!” 

She grabs his hand from where it’s been flopped by her hip, turning his arm towards her.

“Here,” she says.

He feels her drop his hand and grab his ankle. There’s a brief feeling of pressure on the side of his foot, hard enough to feel through his sock.

“Did you just kiss my foot?”

“Yeah. Happy New Year’s.”

Steve kisses the top of the foot that Robin shoved in his face. Her socks are still really soft, and he nestles his head back against them and the mattress.

“Happy New Year’s. Love you.”

“Love you too, dingus.”

Loving Robin isn’t really like loving Dustin, or like loving Nancy, or like loving any of the other kids or like loving anyone in his family. It’s just… like this. It’s weird and comfortable and funny and kind of stupid. It’s saying whatever comes to mind without being afraid. It’s being known better than he’s ever been known before. It’s making a promise he knows he’ll keep and knowing that he’s not going to be let down again.

It’s Robin, and it’s pretty great. 

**Author's Note:**

> i started this at 6 am and finished at 9:30. i don't know why i decided to write a new year's fic in mid-july. it just happened.
> 
> thanks to my angel sarah (mjolnirbreaker on here) even tho she was asleep the whole time i was writing bc she still provided support and love once she woke up. 
> 
> yes the title is from "new year's day" by taylor swift. come see me @ahoylesbians on tumblr if u wanna chat about it


End file.
